Sympathy for the Devil
by Vanillasiren
Summary: She doesn't want to feel sorry for him, but she does. My long-delayed entry for Golden Queen week. Dedicated to (or mildly plagiarized from, depending on your perspective) wolfenqueenyuri, the best damn 'ship captain around!


Sympathy for the Devil

Summary: She doesn't want to feel sorry for him, but she does. My long-delayed entry for Golden Queen week. Dedicated to (or mildly plagiarized from, depending on your perspective) **wolfenqueenyuri**, the best damn 'ship captain around!

He's in pain.

She wants to relish it. Gods know she has precious little to relish these days. With Henry gone, the gaping hole that all the other losses have left in her heart – Daniel, her father, her mother – seems to have gotten infinitely bigger. But at least she knows (well, she believes, she _has_ to believe) that Henry is still alive.

But not Baelfire. Not Henry's father. Henry's father, and _his_ son.

She tells herself he deserves this pain. That it's long past time for him to get some goddamn karma, a taste of all the suffering he's caused _her_.

Bad enough Belle regained her memory, turned back into her simpering self, and he supposedly suffered no consequences from lusting over her dark and slutty counterpart.

Bad enough he has not paid, will _never_ pay for his part in her mother's death.

He should suffer. He should. He should.

And she should relish it.

But somehow ...

She has never seen him like this. Never seen him look so …. Defeated. So small, so _human_ and vulnerable. His shoulders slump all the time now, as if his grief is physically weighing him down. He seems older, frailer, and it …

It frightens her. It makes him difficult to hate, and if she can't hate him, if she can't keep it up…

What other feelings might surface instead?

She _must _hate him. She must keep up the effort, no matter how much it exhausts her, drains her. She must remember how he used her, how he used her mother, how so much of the pain and suffering in her life can be traced back to him.

He's suffering. She must relish it. She _must_.

Right now, he's standing on the deck, looking out in the endless blue. The pain seems to radiate off him in waves, and he doesn't even notice Regina as she stands there, trying to draw some satisfaction from all of this, trying to be The Evil Queen who revels in the agony of her enemies, trying to draw in venom with every breath…

At some point, he senses her presence, and when he turns, the pain in his eyes is so intense it takes her breath away.

"I'm sorry about your son."

The words are out before she can stop them, in a rush, in a single exhale, in a spark of pure empathy, understanding, and compassion. Later, she is sure, she will hate herself for it, for her weakness, her foolishness, but now, she only knows that this is the most sincere thing she has said to him in years.

She sees his eyes widen when he realizes she actually means it. His mouth opens, and then closes. He swallows, and it's only when his hand brushes his face that she realizes he's been crying.

"Thank you," he manages, after a moment. He clears his throat and makes to move past her.

Regina catches his arm.

"Tell me," she says. Their eyes lock, and her heart beats faster.

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me we'll find Henry. My son, your grandson. Tell me we'll get him back."

He turns his head away. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Oh _gods _Regina, don't … don't look at me like that, please. Like … like you did that night, when I first came to you."

"God damn it Rumple, why would even bring that up –"

He grabs her, shakes her. "You still expect me to fix things!"

Regina tries unsuccessfully to wriggle out of his grasp, but has to settle for glaring at him. "No I don't," she hisses. "I'm not that stupid anymore. You never fixed anything, you just broke me down more than I already was. But I don't care about that now. All I care about is my son. And for some reason, given recent revelations, I thought you might care about him too. Was I mistaken?"

He loosens his grip slightly. "No … no you weren't … mistaken. But I can't tell you we're going to get him back."

"Oh you can't? Tell me Oh Dark One, is your future-seeing ability suddenly on the fritz, or do you just really enjoy tormenting me that much?"

"Damn it, Regina! These visions, they don't come just because I want them. If they did, do you think we'd have lost him in the first place? Do you think I would have let my son get_ shot_, if I had known –"

Then his voice breaks, and he shakes, and he seems to crumple against her, and suddenly, she's holding him up, holding him in her arms, cradling and soothing him the way he cradled and soothed _her_ once –more than once – but she must not remember, and she should let him go, let him break, let him fall to ground, but instead she's drawing him closer, wrapping her arms around him, shushing him, murmuring nonsensical words of comfort, of consolation…

She doesn't know how long they stay like this, she and her former teacher, former lover, constant tormentor and current enemy, wrapped in an awkward embrace of grief and empathy.

When he pulls back…

When he pulls back, their lips could meet.

When he pulls back, their bodies could intertwine, grief and rage and pain all blurring together into one incomprehensible mass of lust, of need.

When he pulls back, he could _take_ her, take her right up against the rails of the ship, take her like he did back then, take his pleasure, her pleasure, take all the pain away for both of them, if only for a moment.

He won't, of course. When he pulls back, he will look at her, and then quickly away, and he will disentangle himself and depart, and she will close her eyes and draw in her breaths in time with the sound of his limping gait, and they will never speak of this moment. She will wonder if he wishes it had been Belle, holding him like that, and she will hate herself for the thought, and she will hurl curses into the sea. Then she will dry her tears and summon her hate and shore up her defenses against him, and banish all thoughts of future … compassion, because it's going to be a long journey through the hell that is Neverland, and sympathy for the devil is something she can no longer afford.


End file.
